Worktop installation in Shirley

Yes. Shirley is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are CR0. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Croydon. The distance from the standing to the actual kitchen door is the number that counts, since plenty of drives finish at a side gate and a garden path. A van that has to move mid-fit costs the best part of an hour and takes a man off the tools to do it. Van to door is the distance that matters. Your part of it happens entirely at home, with nothing to travel to and nothing to bring back.

Bungalow kitchens are frequently extended into the rear or opened into the roof space, so the room is part original and part new build. The carry is the easy part; the plaster around the old breast and the packing over a moved floor are not. Levelled first, then set, then sealed. Where a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The awkward metre takes the longest.

A side gate and a back door mean the stone never goes through the house at all, which keeps the dust and most of the risk outside. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Banisters and door frames are padded before anything moves. Deep gravel takes the wheels of a loaded trolley and holds them, so either boards go down or the pieces are carried. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. Where the van stands sets how the day runs.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The void ends whether we have finished or not. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Tenants are still in the building, so the stairs stay clear.

Island units are rarely fixed to anything at first fix, so they get screwed to the floor and levelled against the perimeter run before the stone is measured at all. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. One datum for every run in the room. The stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately.

The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The scribe is cut on site or it is not cut. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. An owner paying for this directly tends to want the reasoning as much as the number, so a quote that explains why a join sits where it does is worth more than a cheaper one that does not. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Access confirmed rather than assumed.

Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. What you get is a line rather than a step, because the pieces are levelled to each other first. Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. Knee room under a breakfast bar is measured from the face of the cabinets rather than from the edge of the stone, so a deep apron quietly eats the depth somebody actually gets to sit in. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. The island is set against the perimeter, not a wall.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Sealing is the one maintenance job that genuinely differs by material, and it is worth knowing which you are buying before the slab is chosen. Wide doorways and level thresholds mean full-length pieces go in whole and the join count comes down to slab length alone. A run crossing from the original room into the extension is packed to one plane before the stone is offered up. Carried once, and carried properly.

An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. Variation past what packing can take up has to be corrected in the carcasses before we cut, because the template records the units as they stand. An alcove is commonly wider at the back than at the front, so a piece cut to the opening drops in and then stands off the rear wall. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Carcasses get packed level before anything is offered up.

The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. Three stools along one side need more clear length than most plans allow, and once the seating depth is fixed the piece either grows or it loses a seat. Support goes in before stone does, so whatever steel, plywood or extra noggin the shape calls for is fitted while the room is still empty. Steel under the overhang before stone goes near it.